Are some chickens raised with growth hormones?

[AndyBendy]

Wherever I am searching, it says that producers are completely banned worldwide from using growth hormones on chickens. But do some actually use it?

I am pretty skeptical because I can find 2 chicken brands in my supermarket with extremely different prices. One is like 6-7$ a kg ($3 per lbs), the common meat price around here, and another is around 2$ a kg (under 1$ per lbs). I live in Romania, so thats why even the more expensive chicken is really cheap here. But even for our standards, the 2$ per kg chicken is strangely cheap and I dunno why.

Also, a doctor I've talked with told me of little girls who got their first periods at ages 8 or 9. He blamed the growth hormones in the cheap chicken their parents fed them.

May Romania get worse quality stuff since it's a relatively poor country? I mean, I know we dont get all the good quality from USA and Western Europe, but to the point our chicken has growth hormones?

P.S.: Sorry if this thread is not suitable on the nutrition forum. Didnt know where to post.

[safcpaul]

Chickens are 4 times bigger now than they were in 1950. Average chicken in factory's are killed after 42 days. (6 weeks) for their meat. In their normal natural habitat it would take over 4 month for them to fully mature for their meat. Of course growth hormones are used

[Ghawk21]

We get ranges of prices here too(Canada). Some are fed different diets, supposedly. I don't know about GH specifically but I imagine they're pumped full of other things like anti-biotics and god knows what kind of "feed." Its also common for the ones in the store to be pumped full of water (? maybe another liquid) to increase their weight. That's why some shrink so much more during cooking.

[desslok]

Its also common for the ones in the store to be pumped full of water (? maybe another liquid) to increase their weight. That's why some shrink so much more during cooking.

Its usually some kind of saline solution, like someone in contest prep mode tweaking their sodium intake to look “fuller”. As for size I believe that is mainly due to genetic modification/breeding. They were bred to grow faster and bigger and no longer need the hormones. However the faster growing sometimes get tougher meat “woody breast”. So you pay more for the slow growing ones, since they take the producer more time and resources, but potentially more tender meat.

[broganoff]

Its usually some kind of saline solution, like someone in contest prep mode tweaking their sodium intake to look “fuller”. As for size I believe that is mainly due to genetic modification/breeding. They were bred to grow faster and bigger and no longer need the hormones. However the faster growing sometimes get tougher meat “woody breast”. So you pay more for the slow growing ones, since they take the producer more time and resources, but potentially more tender meat.

This. Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), who would probably love to push a hormone chicken narrative more than anyone, even covered this in his sequel where he starts a chicken fast food joint. The farmer said that chickens grow so fast that they don't need hormones. So now it's a convenient marketing trick for food manufacturers to use.

[Mrpb]

Wherever I am searching, it says that producers are completely banned worldwide from using growth hormones on chickens. But do some actually use it?

I am pretty skeptical because I can find 2 chicken brands in my supermarket with extremely different prices. One is like 6-7$ a kg ($3 per lbs), the common meat price around here, and another is around 2$ a kg (under 1$ per lbs). I live in Romania, so thats why even the more expensive chicken is really cheap here. But even for our standards, the 2$ per kg chicken is strangely cheap and I dunno why.

Also, a doctor I've talked with told me of little girls who got their first periods at ages 8 or 9. He blamed the growth hormones in the cheap chicken their parents fed them.

May Romania get worse quality stuff since it's a relatively poor country? I mean, I know we dont get all the good quality from USA and Western Europe, but to the point our chicken has growth hormones?

P.S.: Sorry if this thread is not suitable on the nutrition forum. Didnt know where to post.

There are certain species of chicken especially bred for meat production. They grow much faster and get much bigger. This is the cheapest chicken. AFAIK they do not use growth hormone in the EU.

Also water and saline injection in chicken breast should not be happening in EU. It's illegal.